The Immanent Potential of Economic and Monetary Integration: A Critical Reading of the Eurozone Crisis

Peter J Verovšek

doi:10.1017/s1537592717000081

Abstract

The Eurozone crisis revealed fundamental flaws in the institutional architecture of the Economic and Monetary Union. Its lack of political steering capacity has demonstrated the need for a broad but seemingly unachievable political union with shared economic governance and a common treasury. Agreement on further measures has been difficult to achieve, as different actors have imposed divergent external criteria for the success of the Eurozone. As part of their heritage in Western Marxism, the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School sought to overcome such problems by identifying internal standards for social criticism. Building on their understanding of immanent critique, I argue that the Eurozone already contains the normative principles necessary to support greater political integration. While the citizens of Europe must provide the democratic legitimation necessary to realize this latent potential, the flaws revealed by the crisis are already pushing Europe towards greater transnational solidarity.

Highlights

Critiquing from WithinSocial criticism can be based on at least three distinct approaches: the normative discovery of objective standards, the constructivist invention of criteria or the hermeneutic interpretation of already accepted norms
The Eurozone crisis revealed fundamental flaws in the institutional architecture of the Economic and Monetary Union
Agreement on further measures has been difficult to achieve, as different actors have imposed divergent external criteria for the success of the Eurozone. As part of their heritage in Western Marxism, the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School sought to overcome such problems by identifying internal standards for social criticism. Building on their understanding of immanent critique, I argue that the Eurozone already contains the normative principles necessary to support greater political integration

Summary

Critiquing from Within

Social criticism can be based on at least three distinct approaches: the normative discovery of objective standards, the constructivist invention of criteria or the hermeneutic interpretation of already accepted norms. Critical theory focuses on the pathologies of the present by recognizing that the “development of society itself gives rise to a problem situation objectively affording contemporaries privileged access to the structures of the social world.”[48] The Frankfurt School argues that the internal contradictions of the present are expressed through economic dysfunction, and as “lived crises” experienced by concrete individuals.[49]. In the first “explanatory-diagnostic” (Benhabib) phase, the theorist seeks to explain and diagnose the pathologies of the present This involves categorical critique showing how the concepts used to explain the crisis undermine themselves in practice when they “are measured against their own objective content.”.

The Immanent Potential of the EMU

Beyond Economic Rationality